


You Know Why

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Beaches, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Multi, Post-Series, Resolution, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: Dom cut and run a year ago, without a word to his team. Brian's network of contacts located him in the Maldives, and Brian's out here to find him. For more reasons than one.





	

From Brian O’Connor’s perch over the ocean, the Maldives glittered in the distance like rhinestones on a necklace. He kicked his feet, heels dangling a few inches above the blue, and sank a little deeper into his cocktail. Jet lag was nothing; Brian felt like he’d been half asleep since last year. He scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head hard, trying to focus.

This blurriness wasn’t the truth. It hadn’t been that way at all, this hellish year after Dom left without a word. If anything, Brian had been better - sharper, faster, laser-focused. His reputation as a street racer in Goa only grew, looming far larger now than the unassuming dad in white-heeled Converse. The only one not impressed by all this was Mia.

She knew - the whys and the worst and the best of him. She let him do what he had to, because loving him was probably like chasing a damned monsoon. Brian was here on this island, on this plush padded loveseat on the ocean, because she’d pushed him.

Beside his whiskey sour, Brian’s phone lit up. He blinked hard at the screen and cupped it in his hands like a puppy, grinning helplessly as Mia’s text filled his world with sharp-focused color. Little Jack sat in her lap, displaced by Mia’s perfect round belly. Maybe they could pull this off, Brian thought wildly. Maybe he could do his part. Maybe Dom wouldn’t have to miss another kid’s first words.

“This seat taken?” a gravelly voice behind him asked. And here was Dom, summoned on cue like the fucking clairvoyant he seemed to be half the time. Brian looked back, and adrenaline shot through him like a hit of codone.

A few times in his life, Brian had been choked to death - well, nearly. By smoke, by gas, by human hands; but a smile? Had to be a first. That smile, faint and inviting and kind of mischievous on Dom’s mouth sucked all the oxygen from the night. Brian tried to play it cool, like he could still breathe and swallow and all the things normal people were capable of before they’d been exposed to a Toretto. Exposure to Torettos was terminal.

“Not sure,” Brian said, slumping back towards the sea as his self control turned tenous, “depends.”

“On what?” Dom’s voice was closer now. Not that it mattered. If he hadn’t said a thing, had just moved closer, Brian would have known. Shit, the guy was like–like– like he didn’t know what. The sun, maybe, radiating heat and energy. Or maybe what Brian felt was some part of him swinging back; a fucking compass needle, turning for Dom like he was due North.

Brian liked, and didn’t like how that felt, all at once.

“On what you’ve got to say,” Brian replied, and his voice trembled, and fuck he wanted to touch Dom with him so near. Guilt bubbled up in his throat, but Brian reminded himself that Mia knew. Mia sent him out here. Not because she was pregnant, not because she couldn’t have brought Dom home herself.

Of the two of them, Brian needed to be the one, more. And they all knew why, even if Brian and Dom never acted on the gravity between them.

“Why’d you leave, Dom?” Brian asked the ocean.

They stayed there a minute, frozen in orbit, Brian glaring hard at the waves and Dom a silent wall behind him.

“You came all the way out here to find me,” Dom muttered, “you know why.”

And he did know why. The United States might have pardoned them all for services rendered, but in the process they’d acquired enemies. No good deed goes unpunished. One, in particular, always seemed to be sharpening his vendetta against them. Brian could have understood that, maybe a few years ago. Might have even let Dom go, and buried himself and his grief in on his own busy life - exactly like he did years ago.

But it was different now. “Yeah, I know why. Deckard Shaw. But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t say a word about it.”

Another silence.

“Yeah it does, O’Conner,” Dom said quietly, like the last name could put distance between them for this. “Already lost enough. Not gonna lose everything.”

Brian’s jaw clenched against the hot pulse of grief his words summoned. “So you left the former FBI agent behind? Fuck Dom, you put me out to pasture. Not my idea.”

“Because you and Mia deserve a life. A real life.” Dom stalked around the edge of the bench like a cat, into Brian’s periphery, probably because if he was gonna glare daggers at Brian he was damn well gonna do it where Brian could see.

He always looked kind of like an angry pitbull when he did that. Or a bull. Brian could almost see the steam snorting from his nose and under most other circumstances that would be hilarious.

“That ‘real’ life needs you in it,” Brian snapped back. Inhaled. “And not just for her.”

“Look, Jack’s gonna be–” Dom started.

“Not Jack,” Brian cut him off. He turned over his cellphone on the table, slow, and twisted his body towards Dom. “Come on, Dom. I chased you all the way out here. You know why.”

Dom went stll - about as still as he ever got, anyway - and stared at Brian, all the impatience gone. “What are you saying.”

He didn’t make it a question, and he started moving as he said it; into Brian’s space. Hesitating. The pull was there now, stronger when Brian could smell him now, the aftershave and tang of grease that hung on him like old smoke. Gravity shifted, turning electric when Dom stood next to Brian’s knees. Brian remembered something from an old science class, about how energy was never lost. Just changed.

This might be a different conversation, but they could do it with the same words they’d always used.

Brian tipped his head, looking up at Dom with one eye. “Come home, Dom. Don’t be alone. You’ve got both of us. You’ve got all of us.”

Dom didn’t answer. He stood there, black against the red sky, saying nothing while the tension torqued up between them all over again.

So Brian took a chance.

He hiked up his left knee and scooted sideways, until he’d forked his legs around Dom’s calves. Then he sat forward.

“Fuck are you doing, O’Conner?” Dom asked, voice so soft and low, probably only Brian and the whales could hear it.

“Something I shoulda done a long time ago,” Brian replied. His hands found Dom’s hips - a place they’d never, ever been before, and hotter for the newness and the fear. “When I said you’ve got us, I meant it.”

There was a whole lot that Dom, by rights, could have wanted to know then. About the consequences, about Mia, about why now, about what Brian knew about Deckard. But Dom - like the fucking clairvoyant he was - seemed to have figured it all out himself. He got down on his knees, nice and slow, and leaned into Brian’s body in the last of the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fulfillment of an askbox prompt on Tumblr. The original post is [here](http://jazzforthecaptain.tumblr.com/post/152876607853/dom-and-brian-after-dom-has-had-to-cut-and-run).


End file.
